Confirmation of what I have always believed, that the Catholic doctrine of the papacy and papal infallibility is irrelevant in modern times. Disagree with the Pope? No problem, just label him a bad Pope. Every Catholic his own Pope I guess.
Confirmation of what I have always believed, that the Catholic doctrine of the papacy and papal infallibility is irrelevant in modern times. Disagree with the Pope? No problem, just label him a bad Pope. Every Catholic his own Pope I guess. There have been lots of bad popes. The doctrine of papal infallibility has always been severely limited.
Good Catholics have disagreed with the pope for many reasons over millennia.
"Papal infallibility" does not mean that everything a Pope says (or really anything that he _does_) is infallible. We've explained that multiple times, I think.
Pastor Aeternus (Vatican I) set out four conditions for papal infallibility to come into play:
- The Pope must be addressing the whole church (a news conference on an airplane already flunks this test) ...
- He must be speaking in his role as Pope of the universal church, not, e.g., as a private theologian ...
- He must be teaching _definitively_ ("I think that" is not teaching definitively; "you must believe this or you are outside the Church" is) ...
- a doctrine (not some disciplinary or prudential legislation, but something required for _belief_) concerning faith or morals.
(Except for canonizations of saints, which are a separate case,) +Francis has never taught anything infallibly. "Not infallible" does not necessarily mean that Catholics are free to ignore it, but that +Francis or a later Pope (or Council) could change or revoke the teaching.